Messenger
by Hedgi
Summary: It's in her name, she realizes, half bitter. Irises mean more than rainbows and messages. They mean promises and cherished friendship and courage and hope— And pain, sorrow like golden ichor from a pierced purple heart, the kind that stains and stays and doesn't fade. Iris-centric companion to "Wild Card"


Written while listening to Karine Polwart's "Light on the Shore" and Barber's "Adagio for Strings"  
Song quoted is the above "Light on the Shore." Book quoted is Peter S Beagle's Last Unicorn.

* * *

Messenger

It's in her name, she realizes, half bitter. It has always been in her name. Maybe her mother knew, but—probably not. No one thinks, really, about the lesser-known meanings of things, just English teachers and scholars. And, like her, people desperately trying to make sense of a world shattering like so much glass.

Whatever life she is about to get, she hopes it will be good. She hopes that things will be better for everyone, she hopes and hopes and hopes, that not everything will change when Barry darts like a needle through cloth, back. Will she be the Iris West-Allen that some newspaper says she will be? Or will she still be her? Will she even remember the life lived and lost?  
Is this how Susan of Narnia felt in leaving for the last time, knowing a lifetime of memories was going to vanish, and she'd never get them back?  
She remembers a line from a book from his shelf, _I love whom I love,_ and clings to it the way she did when Eddie tried to push her away, convinced by two weeks of solitude and self-doubt and a hologram of a front page that a murderer and possible by-line knew her heart more than she did. She decides who she loves, she is the queen of her own heart and won't accept anything else as true.

She squeezes Eddie's hand. Coincidence brought him to her once. It can again, maybe not as lovers but she won't let the world, or fate, or destiny, or the future rob her of him. She hopes to convey that to him with the touch, the smile, but her eyes are locked on the blur that is Barry, her best friend, racing like Mercury back, back, back.  
She hopes the life he gets will be enough, and as he vanishes, she waits for she doesn't know what. A blink and blur and everything to shift and change, maybe.  
The only thing different she notices is that Eddie's hand is gone.

And it all goes wrong, and Eobard—never Thawne, never the last name she might have merged with her own, is holding Barry by the neck and she can't hear his words, but her father is on the ground and there is murder in the Man in Yellow's eyes, and she is frozen in fear as her world teeters on the brink of crashing down around her.  
And then falls.  
She doesn't hear a crack, but maybe it's because the world is white with panic and everything is muffled by the ringing deafness in her ears, the single word, _no,_ repeating in her mind, thundering with her pulse as a phantom pain begins in her own heart. _Eddie!_

Irises mean more than rainbows and messages. They mean _promises_ and _cherished friendship_ and _courage_ and _hope_ —  
And pain, sorrow like golden ichor from a pierced purple heart, the kind that stains and stays and doesn't fade.

 _No, no, Eddie!_  
She doesn't remember the stairs down, doesn't remember anything except trying to hold him, pleading with him like she pleaded before for him, _Eddie, no, no,_ _Stay with me, okay? Stay_ , she loves him, she loves him, she loves him.  
But she's not enough. She's only Iris, not a goddess, not a metahuman, only a flower that blooms every spring and symbolizes, and she can't hold him here. And while Eobard fades, shatters into pieces like Voldemort's stupid movie death—god, she had written such an angry review post on her blog about that and it doesn't even matter now—he does too, slipping out through her hands. Everyone leaves, in the end, everyone always leaves and all the pleading in the world can't keep him from the light that's pulling him away, his eyes locked on hers, hazy with pain and final words.  
A final message.  
 _He wa-as w-rong._ He sighs it, the sounds so wrong, shuddering and slow, not steady and certain. _Turns out I am a hero after all.  
_ And oh, God, no. "You are, Eddie, you are. My hero." Her's, and the world's, bleeding out by his own stupid choice to save Barry, and Cisco, and Joe, and Her. She can feel him fading and all the tears in the world aren't enough so she says his name, tells him what he needs to hear, what is true, Eddie, who's been so lost these last days, who is more than whatever Eobard told him. Always more, always a hero, cocky and bold and noble.  
It's not enough, there isn't enough time, she needs more time, there are so many things she wants to say.  
He tries to say something else and she leans in the world around her reduced to a blue glow and her father's hand and his face, the lines of pain smoothing out.  
She thinks she can hear an _I love you_ as the red stain stops spreading and his eyes stop seeing.

When she moved in, they found a CD that neither of them remembered buying, celtic folk songs or somesuch, not their style, listened to it once and put it aside, but one verse comes now, unwanted and unbidden to her mind, a woman's voice aching— _are we old enough and bold enough to say goodbye? Are we old enough and bold enough that we do not need to cry? I'm not so old and not so bold that I don't need you more than the light that's slowly beckoning you to the shore._ And now she understands it, because no, she's not old enough, or bold enough, she's not, and she won't ever be, but it doesn't matter, because he's gone, gone into the light that people who've almost died claim welcomes them. (and she thinks, _why, why, why_ , _how can Light be something so cruel_ )  
He's gone and there are no miracles left.

She clings to his shirt, clings to him, head bowed, because this is wrong. The world should stop here, should pause to acknowledge this, but it doesn't and there is a roaring above her own choking sobs, and her father is pulling her away. It's not right, she thinks, to leave him to the portal-blackhole-magi-science-bullshit that's been her life for the last year and a half, it's not right to leave him behind.  
Her hand catches on something as her father pulls her away and says something and Barry holds them both and runs and she watches Eddie's body—his body but not him, not Eddie, not anymore because he's gone and somehow this is all her fault—vanish into the light.  
Vanish into the light that sucks everything in, that beckons and pulls and for one selfish stupid heartbeat she almost wishes it would take her, too, because how can anyone stop this?

But no. She Believes in Barry, she has always believed. That has been her Role throughout all of this, to Believe and to spread the word, to be the messenger, to make sure everyone knows that the Streak, the Blur, the Flash lives.  
Barry will stop this world-ending horror, but that can't erase anything. It won't erase the crashed cars. It won't erase Eddie's sacrifice. She has to remember, can't let herself forget the love, the loss, the longing. There is no proof of anything that happened in the pipeline, no body to kiss a final time and lay to rest, peaceful. It's not fair, it's not right, it's not enough, but that is all there is. There is only remembering, that last Honor.

Iris is the Goddess of rainbows and messages, she knows this from the folklore class she took to pad her GPA. Iris means Promises made in love, and cherished friendships, and valor and hope and sorrow that doesn't end, irises mean blooming and returning. Irises mean the messages passed between heaven and earth.  
So she will be Iris, not Thawne, not West, not Allen, but Iris, Iris with two rings on a chain around her neck. She will be Promises and Friendship and Pain and she will be the Messenger, the Voice in Barry's ear, the voice in the world's ears— _Believe in the Impossible, believe in the Flash, because he is a hero, but remember, if you do anything remember—he isn't the only one._  
And that will have to be enough.

* * *

I'll just see myself down to hell now.


End file.
